The marriage laws of Massachusetts prevailing today are different
from those in force all through my youth. As early as 1786 a law was
passed by the General Court of Massachusetts establishing the methods
to be pursued by those intending to enter into marriage, which
provided that all persons intending to be joined in marriage, should
“cause notice of their intention to be filed with the town clerk
fourteen days before their marriage, which notice should be published
by the clerk, either by posting up a written notice in some public
place in the town of which he is clerk, fourteen days at least before
the marriage or by making public proclamation thereof at three public
religious meetings in the town on separate days, not less than three
days distant from each other, exclusive of the days of publication.”
This law with slight amendments remained in force until 1850, when
the present law was enacted requiring only a notice to the town
clerk, by whom the necessary certificate would be issued. I remember
well the little box with a glass front attached to the wall in the
vestibule of the meeting house in which the marriage intention was
posted, and I have often heard it read from the pulpit on the three
Sundays required by law, much to the embarrassment of the loving pair
sitting within the gaze of the congregation.
One of the most remarkable developments within my memory has been the
number of articles claimed to be associated with the Mayflower and
the Pilgrims. Not a month passes without the reception at Pilgrim
Hall of a letter offering for sale a Mayflower relic. It may be a tea
pot, though the Pilgrims had no tea; or a porcelain mug, though the
inventories recorded in Plymouth contained no porcelain ware until
1660; or a fork, which the Pilgrims did not use, or a mahogany table,
though no mahogany was known in England before 1700.
Three articles claimed to have been associated with the Pilgrims I
have myself proved to bear fictitious labels. One of these exhibited
a few years ago at a portrait exhibition in Copley Square as a
miniature of Governor Edward Winslow, when he was six years of age,
I have found to be a picture of a son of Capt. Thomas Dingley of
Marshfield, painted about the time of the Revolution. Another article
labelled the “Knocker” from the door of Governor Winslow’s house,
was taken from the door of a house built by Isaac Winslow, grandson
of the governor, about 1720. Still another article presented to the
Pilgrim Society as a part of the doorstep of a church in Delfthaven
where the Pilgrims held service on the eve of their departure, owed
the origin of its record to a miss-reported speech of one of the
building committee of a church in Chicago, who had at its dedication
stated that he had imbedded in its walls a piece of Plymouth Rock,
a stone from Scrooby, and a piece of the pavement of a church in
Delfthaven, which, perhaps, the Pilgrims may have visited. Of course
the piece of doorstep has never found a lodgment in Pilgrim Hall.
These fictitious historic relics are interesting as showing the
veneration in which the Pilgrims are held, which is not shared by the
Winthrop Colony, or by any other body of men since the days of Christ.
It will be remembered by my readers that at the dinner of the Old
Colony Club on the 22d of December, 1769, the first course was “a
large baked Indian Whortleberry pudding.” I have often been asked how
long the custom continued of serving the pudding before the meat,
and whether I remembered such a custom, and my reply has been that
the only relic of the custom existing within my day was a legend of
the promise once made at dinner to children, that the more pudding
they ate the more meat they might have. I always supposed that
this promise was intended to restrict indulgence in meat, either
from motives of economy, or to confine the youthful diet to a more
wholesome food. I have recently read an extract from a book of
travels written by Henry Bradshaw Fearon, an Englishman, who visited
the United States in 1817. The book is in the Congressional Library
in Washington, and probably never had a circulation on this side
of the ocean. It contains much of interest to an American reader,
including an approximately accurate answer to the question concerning
the custom above mentioned. Mr. Fearon left New York on the 8th of
September, 1817, on the steamboat Connecticut, bound for New Haven,
and he described the boat as having an engine of forty horse power,
and fitted up with one cabin for ladies, two for gentlemen, and
an extensive kitchen. Arriving at New Haven in twelve hours, he
was transferred to the steamboat Fulton, bound to New London, from
which place he took a stage via Providence for Boston. The fare from
New York to New Haven, including table board, was seven dollars.
On a Sunday, while in Boston, he went to Quincy and dined with
ex-president John Adams. The dinner was served at one o’clock, and
consisted of a first course of Indian meal pudding and molasses, and
a second course of veal, bacon, neck of mutton, cabbage, carrots,
and Indian beans, with Madeira wine. He said that Boston was the
headquarters of Federalism in politics and Unitarianism in religion,
and that the Bostonians were the most intelligent and hospitable
people he had met in America. Thus it is certain that the pudding
custom was in vogue in 1817, and was discontinued not long afterwards.
The allusion above made to the steamboats Connecticut and Fulton,
leads me to again refer to the steamboat Eagle, which came to
Plymouth in 1818 under the command of Capt. Lemuel Clark. That boat
was built in New York, but like other boats was enjoined under a
New York law from operating in New York waters, on the ground of a
monopoly in the use of the rivers and harbors of New York, which had
been granted by the state. Resistance to this monopoly led to the
famous case of Gibbons against Ogden, in which, while the monopoly
was held good by the state courts, it was decided by the Supreme
Court of the United States to be unconstitutional. Pending the
decision in that case, steamboats sought business in other waters,
and the Eagle, before coming to Boston and Plymouth, cruised in
Chesapeake bay, under the command of Capt. Moses Rogers, who was in
1819 commander of the steamship Savannah, which in that year was the
first steamship to cross the Atlantic. A picture of the Eagle is
owned by the Pilgrim Society. Capt. Rogers was the grandfather of
our townsman, Dr. Charles Rufus Rogers, and it is the story of the
Savannah, which leads me into a digression which may make necessary
an additional chapter of memories which I had intended to close
with the next chapter. A memoir of Capt. Moses Rogers states that
the Savannah was a full rigged ship of three hundred and fifty
tons, built at Corlear’s Hook, New York, by Francis Fickett, and
launched August 22, 1818. She was bought by Scarborough and Isaacs
of Savannah, and her machinery, with a ninety horse power engine,
having forty-inch cylinders, and a five foot stroke, was put in under
the supervision of Capt. Rogers. Besides the Eagle he had already
commanded the steamboat Fulton on the Hudson river, and the Phenix on
the Delaware river. A picture of the Savannah, a copy of which I have
seen, represents her as a vessel of fine model, with round stern,
a medium clipper bow, and a graceful, easy shear. Her wheels were
made adjustable, and so affixed to the shaft as in stormy weather to
be unshipped and removed to the deck in twenty minutes. Her wheels
consisted of eight radial arms held in place by one flange, and
arranged to close like a fan. With her allowance of seventy-five tons
of coal and twenty-five cords of wood, she sailed from New York,
March 28, 1819, and arrived at Savannah April 6, in two hundred and
seven hours from Sandy Hook lightship, having steamed four days
during the passage. On the 22d of May she began her voyage from
Savannah to Liverpool, where she arrived on the 20th of June. Her
log kept by Stevens Rogers, the sailing master, a brother-in-law of
Capt. Moses Rogers, is in the possession of the descendants of Moses,
and contains an interesting account of the voyage. On the 23d of
July the Savannah set sail from Liverpool for Cronstadt, touching at
Copenhagen and Stockholm on the way, reaching the first named port on
the 9th of September. A few days later she arrived at St. Petersburg,
where she remained until October 10, receiving while there visits
from the Russian Lord High Admiral Marcus de Travys. On the 30th of
November she again reached Savannah, and was run as a packet between
that port and New York, until she was wrecked on Long Island.
Questions are often asked in newspapers and elsewhere concerning the
circumstances attending the composition of popular hymns and songs,
and I have already told my readers about the origin of “Sweet Home,”
and the “Star Spangled Banner.” I have lately read in the Boston
Sunday _Herald_ an account of the composition of “My Country ’tis of
Thee,” by Samuel Francis Smith, which may be interesting to those
of my readers who did not happen to see it. Mr. Smith was born in
Sheafe street, Boston, October 21, 1808, and after attending the
Eliot school and the Boston Latin school, graduated at Harvard in
1829. After graduating at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1832,
he was settled as pastor of the Baptist church in Waterville, Me.,
and served as Professor of Modern languages in Colby University until
he removed to Newton, Mass., where he resided until his death. At a
meeting in the Old South Church in Boston, Mr. Smith said, in giving
a history of the hymn, that many years before Mr. W. C. Woodbridge
brought from Germany a number of books containing words and music
used in the schools there, and gave them to Mr. Lowell Mason, who
gave them to him, requesting him to either translate them or write
words to such of the music as pleased him. In looking these books
over, Mr. Smith found the notes of our National anthem attached
to a patriotic hymn, and was inspired by it to write the hymn in
question. To the tune of “God Save the King,” Mr. Smith’s hymn was
sung for the first time at a Sunday-school celebration on the Fourth
of July, 1832, and received at once such popular commendation as to
re-christen the tune with the name of “America.” We, of course, ought
to accept Mr. Smith’s word, but it seems almost increditable that
he should have never heard of the tune until 1832, when it had been
known in England as “God Save the King” at least two hundred years.
It is also singular that the origin of many national airs should be
involved in doubt. The Marseillaise, Yankee Doodle, and to a certain
extent the “God Save the King” had an obscure, if not doubtful,
authorship. The last, however, which has by some been attributed to
Henry Carey, a musical composer who flourished in the time of James
the First, seems to have been established by good evidence, to have
been composed by John Bull, a contemporary with Carey, who died in
1622. As I have not been able to trace the name John Bull as applied
to the English people, farther back than about the early part of the
17th century, I think it is a reasonable conjecture that Dr. Bull
was not only the author of the National anthem, but also through his
authorship of that popular air that he gave the name for all time to
his fellow countrymen.
The composition of the favorite Pilgrim hymn “Sons of Renowned
Sires” by Judge John Davis of Boston in 1794, is interesting. Coming
to Plymouth on the evening of the 21st of December to attend a
celebration of the anniversary of the Landing on the next day, the
regret was expressed to him that no original hymn had been prepared
for the occasion, as had been intended. He expressed no intention to
write one, but at an early hour retired to his chamber with his wife.
Instead of going to bed he began to walk the room to the annoyance
of his wife, and against her earnest remonstrances. Mrs. Davis fell
asleep, waking occasionally, and finding him still walking, and the
bed candle unsnuffed and smoking. Not having the remotest idea what
he was doing, she became alarmed for his sanity, and again and again
her sleep was broken by the noise of his footsteps. At last the
candle was extinguished, and in the morning Mr. Davis surprised the
committee with the hymn, which was sung that day to the tune of “God
Save the King,” thirty-eight years before Mr. Smith, the author of
his anthem, had ever heard of it, and which has been sung probably at
every Pilgrim celebration since.
The story of the inspiration of “The Breaking Waves Dashed High,”
written by Mrs. Hemans, is also an interesting one. In 1825 she was
living with her brother at Rhyllon, a parish of St. Asaph at the
mouth of the river Clwyd in North Wales. After shopping one day, one
of her purchases was sent home in a bandbox covered with a newspaper,
which she noticed was a Boston daily. Before throwing the paper away
or burning it, she had the curiosity to look over its contents in
which she found a long account of the Pilgrim celebration in Plymouth
on December 22, 1824, and copious extracts from the oration delivered
by Edward Everett. The Pilgrim story was a new one to her, and the
account, which she read with great interest, was so circumstantial
as to inspire her with the grandeur of the theme. She told Rev.
Charles T. Brooks on a visit to her later home in Dublin, that she
at once, after reading the account, turned to her desk and wrote the
immortal lines. The original manuscript of the hymn she gave to James
T. Fields of Boston, and it is now preserved in the cabinet of the
Pilgrim Society, a gift from Mr. Fields.
It is singular how many of our best hymns have been the work of
an hour. It has been said that the missionary hymn by Reginald
Heber, was one of those sudden inspirations. It was written in 1819,
while he was occupying a living in Hodnet in Shropshire, which
had been given to him by his brother Richard, who was a member of
parliament, and an owner of large estates in that shire. In 1823 he
was consecrated Bishop of Calcutta, and died in India in 1826. Before
going to India he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and wrote
many hymns, which won a permanent place in hymnology, among which was
that sweetly flowing hymn:
“By cool Saloam’s shady rill
How sweet the lily grows.”
I have heard it said that on one occasion Mr. Heber was invited
by a brother clergyman in a neighboring parish to officiate at a
missionary service to be held in his church. In the course of the
evening, before the day of the service, his friend asked him if
it would be possible for him to compose a hymn appropriate to the
occasion. Mr. Heber said he would try, and retiring to another room,
composed the hymn which for appropriateness and beauty, has rarely
been equalled. His brother Richard was an author of note, and left
at his death perhaps the largest private library ever collected in
England. It contained 146,875 volumes, and after his death, the
library was sold at an auction which continued through two hundred
and sixteen days, and realized sixty thousand pounds.
Some years ago I heard the story of an incident which suggested “The
Hanging of the Crane,” one of the most charming poems of Longfellow.
In the early married life of Aldrich, the poet, Longfellow dropped
into his house one night and found him and his wife sitting alone
at their evening meal. “Ah,” said he, as he entered the supper room
and took a seat at the table, “here Aldrich, is a whole poem, and I
will give you the subject to work out.” His friend, believing that
the artist who paints a scene in his imagination, should put it on
the canvas, said, “No, Longfellow, use it yourself.” After some years
of elaboration the poem appeared, depicting the changing scenes in
married life, which the following selected extracts sufficiently
describe. Happy are the father and mother who live to witness the
scenes which time discloses as it unrolls the canvas:
“And now I sit and muse on what may be,
And in my vision, see or seem to see,
Through floating vapors interfused with light.
Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade,
As shadows passing into deeper shade,
Sink and elude the sight.
For two alone, there in the hall,
Is spread the table round and small.
* * * * *
Seated I see the two again,
But not alone; they entertain
A little angel unaware.
With face as round as is the moon;
A royal guest with flaxen hair
Who throned upon his lofty chair
Drums on the table with his spoon.
* * * * *
There are two guests at table now;
The King, deposed and older grown,
No longer occupies the throne—
The crown is on his sister’s brow.
* * * * *
I see the table wider grown,
I see it garlanded with guests,
As if fair Ariadne’s crown
Out of the sky had fallen down.
* * * * *
And now like the magician’s scroll
That in the owner’s keeping shrinks,
With every wish he speaks or thinks,
Till the last wish consumes the whole.
The table dwindles, and again
I see the two alone remain.
The crown of stars is broken in parts.
Its jewels brighter than the day
Have one by one been stolen away
To shine in other homes and hearts.
* * * * *
What see I now? the night is fair;
The storm of grief, the clouds of care,
The wind, the rain have passed away;
The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright.
The house is full of life and light;
It is the Golden Wedding Day.
The guests come thronging in once more;
Quick footsteps sound along the floor;
The trooping children crowd the stair;
And in and out and everywhere
Flashes along the corridor
The sunshine of their golden hair.
On the round table, in the hall,
Another Ariadne’s crown
Out of the sky hath fallen down;
More than one monarch of the moon
Is drumming with his silver spoon;
The light of love shines over all.
The ancient bridegroom and the bride
Smiling contented and serene
Upon the blithe, bewildering scene,
Behold well pleased on every side
Their forms and features multiplied.”
The impromptu remark of Mr. Longfellow to Aldrich might have been
like many other impromptus thought out before. If so, however, it
was under authority of a poet’s license. Perhaps it was like another
of Mr. Longfellow’s impromptus, of which I heard many years ago.
While attending as a delegate the National Republican Convention
in Cincinnati in 1876, a party composed of James Russell Lowell,
Judge E. R. Hoar, Mr. Roosevelt, the father of the President, who
were also delegates, and myself, took a carriage and drove out to
the estate of Nicholas Longworth to call on him and see his wine
vaults. Mr. Longworth told us that Mr. Longfellow had made a recent
call on him, and when introduced had said: “Mr. Longworth, you have
the advantage of me, for you know Pope says, “That worth makes the
man, and the want of it the fellow.” Some men would have thought
of the _bon mot_ the next day, and realized what the French call
_l’esprit d’escallier_, a good thing thought of too late. But Mr.
Longfellow was quick witted enough to think of the good thing “while
going up stairs and not while going down.” There have been severe
critics of Longfellow who would not have hesitated to pronounce the
above impromptu deliberately prepared. They have charged him with
plagiarism, and have said that the “Psalm of Life” is composed of
thoughts from Gœthe and Calderon and Schiller, and have declared that
“there is not one striking image, and barely one striking phrase in
the poem which originated absolutely with himself.” They also claim
that from Soame Jennyn’s was taken the substance of those beautiful
lines:
“Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”
But these critics cannot deny that the dress in which the above
thoughts were clothed, and in which they captivate the reader, were
his own. Would any one on the following statement of facts claim
that Webster was a plagiarist? Rev. Dr. John Pierpont wrote for the
Plymouth celebration on the 22d of December, 1824, a hymn containing
the following stanza:
“The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest.
When Summer’s throned on high,
And the world’s warm breast is in verdure dressed
Go stand on the hill where they lie.
The earliest ray of the golden day
On that hallowed spot is cast,
And the evening sun as he leaves the world,
Looks kindly on that spot last.”
On the 17th of June, 1825, Mr. Webster delivered his memorable
oration at the laying of the cornerstone of Bunker Hill monument,
containing the well known passage, “Let it rise till it meet the sun
in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and
parting day linger and play on its summit.”